Han was WAY cooler than Luke

In my home town, in the schoolyard there is an old rocket monkey bar set. It was a spaceship with a fireman's pole down the centre...we spent every recess and so many evening hours playing there. Sometimes Indiana Jones...sometimes the Dark Crystal... but mostly Star wars.
It was the Mellinium Falcon.
It was the Death Star.
We saved the galaxy over and over again...
We would play until sunset - home time. As the tomboy and only girl tough enough to do my own stunts I was always quite frustrated on the days when I had to be the Princess Leia. On a good day I could be Vader. On a REALLY really good day I was Han Solo. :)

When my brother and I went home a few years ago we wandered about to see old haunts and I crawled up to the gun turret of the Falcon for one last look. I could see the tie fighters at a distance...and I was totally not princess Leia...

I choo choo choose this life

I had a wonderful trip.
It is good to be home, but what a nice time. There was a flash blizzard (WTF?) in Winnipeg the day I was to leave to come back so roads were HORRID and closed, delaying my leaving until 8 PM...and so I got in this AM ~6. I had a nap and shower and came in to work for the afternoon...not quite the best way to end my trip, but my poor friend Grapecat was stuck all night in Toronto after beginning her trip home, so in comparison, it really wasn't so bad. I got to spend a few more hours there with her and her family and see her off on the plane before my bus actually left for real...not a terrible thing.

This weekend was wonderful. The train ride was GLORIOUS, with a glass domed viewing car the whole way...complete with full dining car (salmon!) for meals and the ability to sip a beer while hearing an old man play the mandolin and watch the countryside go by, reading a book for fun and feeling then tension sink out my toes the whole trip. I'm definitely taking the train again somewhere with J. I bet a trip thru the mountains would be beautiful...

I had a great visit. I was able to help them put on a birthday party for her Dad and catch up with her and her mom...and then head out just the 2 of us for an evening to unwind, eat thai food and sit at a martini bar drinking ridiculous martinis and laughing. It was nice to see her and just be around at a time like this - we both needed to destress for vastly different reasons. I'm not always the best talker, but the company was impeccable :)

It was good to relax and share in another family's time together. My food and alcohol intake were absolutely atrocious (restraint? I know not this word...) but it was what it was - delicious! Maple martinis...and all manner of delicious wine. Life is good...this weekend I have had reaffirmed to me that it is indeed this life thing that we're all muddling through that is the process to be enjoyed in all the bits and snippits we are granted. You never know how much of it you have left, and it's the people you share it with that make it so much better. :)

And now I am home to my love and my cats AND my Dad...ready to jump back in with both feet for another week of my crazy life...what photos I remembered to take are to come.

Cheers! :)

FIfty Years is Really Not Enough

I am full of bittersweet memories this morning - Today would have been my parent's 50th wedding anniversary.

Strange.

My Dad is buying flowers and placing out their wedding picture on the table today to remember. Sweet man. He's doing better...so much better. He smiles when he talks of Mum now. The memories are growing sweeter.

He is down in Arizona with a bunch of friends, spending time together and golfing and they are making sure he is alright. Mum and Dad used to go down every March together. It must be strange to be down there alone this year, but I am glad he is there with people who care for him, and who knew and loved Mum and will take the time with Dad to honour Mum's memory today.

50 years is a long long time to love someone.

I hope I am as lucky.

Fifty Years Is Really Not Enough

Fifty years is really not enough

In which to plumb the depths of someone's soul.

Fifty more years, then, should be the goal:

To know the beauty of another's love,

Yearnings shape, and life-long shadows buff.
Yet life was never easy in those years.

Everest is sometimes hard to climb.

A will to love has brought you to this time,

Rich in joys that time cannot remove.

So may this day be filled with happy tears!

Nicholas Gordon

Little Miss Muffet sat on her tuffet eating her crunchy granola

Goooooood morning.
I'm just recovering from a wonderful day and preparing for another.
J and I left home yesterday morning and went to Regina to see Simon Fosford in the evening and then came back afterwards in the wee hours. It was a little drive (~2 hours) back to the city we fell in love in and spent the day reminiscing and enjoying the day. We found our old haunts and walked around Wascana Lake in the city - a beautiful place to be. There are all sorts of new bridges and paths to follow that weren't there before since they did some work on the lake a few years ago. It's about a 4.5 Km all the way around, past the legislature and the memories were coming back like it was yesterday. Then we had some yummy Thai food and went to hear one of the best psytrance DJs in the world play a live mixed set in the University performance room. We got there a bit early and I wandered around my old campus for a while before the show...man. It's amazing how a campus can change in just 7 years. New buildings and people, but it was like coming home for me. I spent my childhood in a tiny town a half hour or so outside of Regina, so it is one of the places I know better than anywhere else. And I spent my university years, where I really found who I was and what I wanted with life in the fair city of Regina...it will always have a soft spot in my heart.
There were changes here and there of course, but mostly good. Some favorite eating places are now gone and the coffee shop I used to manage while in school was closed for renovations, but there were wonderful new things, like the old family owned grocery store across from where I used to live is now a family owned organic grocery store (with yummy fruit smoothies)...I wish it had been there when I was! The old gazebo in Wascana park where we were trapped in a huge thunderstorm and were sure the wrold was ending was still there. The old tree that's been trimmed back as it died in the memorial park down town is still there (I always thought of if as a giant stalk of asparagus and have memories of writing odd poems about it - "Enlighten us asparagus." "Asparagus doth frighten us"...)) A local artist has made giant metal ants that are now crawling all over it...my little asparagus is a work of art now. It's neat to know someone liked it like I did...

It's funny odd little things you remember.
I remember falling in love with J there. We wandered past where we first held hands in a pile of fall leaves, where we'd walk for hours talking about nothing and everything. Just like over 10 years ago when we met...we wandered and talked. It was a great day.

And now - well I just finished a big bowl of pumpkin flax granola from the organic store across from my old home, and I'm going to try and nap and read the day away, and try and rest and stretch up my slightly stiffened legs for mym arathon tomorrow.
Meep.
If anyone is around Saskatoon, come to Griffith's stadium ~10 AM. I'll just be finishing up my mini marathon. Whether I can run the entire way or I have to walk/run it to finish, just doing this is a huge personal goal foe me and I'm very excited. Pop by and we'll go out for breakfast afterwards...my treat.